It’s not something anyone wants to think about, but as tensions escalate around the world, there is a non-zero possibility that World War 3 could happen within the next decade.
Donald Trump’s humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky caused outcry in the international community, while the US has already cut aid to the country which Russia illegally invaded. Meanwhile, European nations including the UK have all pledged to increase defence spending in the next five years. At the same time, the US has slapped tariffs on its closest allies and talks about taking Greenland ‘one way or another’ and has told Canada it will end economic sanctions on its neighbour if it ‘becomes the 51st state’ and gives up its sovereignty.
Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine to defend its advances if necessary. Assuming tensions continue to ramp up, and in a worst case scenario, there are some indicators about would happen if the UK went to war and needed to introduce conscription to stop Vladimir Putin.
In WW2, conscription began for men aged between 20 to 22 in 1939, up to six months before the war actually broke out.
The UK Parliament website says: “During the spring of 1939 the deteriorating international situation forced the British government under Neville Chamberlain to consider preparations for a possible war against Nazi Germany.
Plans for limited conscription applying to single men aged between 20 and 22 were given parliamentary approval in the Military Training Act in May 1939. This required men to undertake six months’ military training, and some 240,000 registered for service.”
But when war was declared, the age range was immediately widened to any man aged 18 to 41.
It continues: “On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed a more wide-reaching measure.
The National Service (Armed Forces) Act imposed conscription on all males aged between 18 and 41 who had to register for service.”
The only men who weren’t called up were those who were too unfit medically, or who worked in vital industries like baking, farming, and medicine which were vital to the war effort.
It adds: “Those medically unfit were exempted, as were others in key industries and jobs such as baking, farming, medicine, and engineering.”
By the end of 1941, women and ‘all childless widows’ between the ages of 20 and 30 were called up, while men aged up to 51 were called up for military service. Even those aged 52 to 60 were required to take part in ‘some form of military service’.
Recently, defence secretary Grant Shapps said that we are “moving from a post-war to a pre-war world”, and General Sir Patrick Sanders, Britain’s most senior army officer, called for an increase in the size of the army and said that the country needed to increase preparedness for conflict.
A YouGov survey carried out in January found that 38% of under-40s said they would refuse to serve in the armed forces if a new world war broke out, and 30% would not serve even if the UK faced ‘imminent invasion’.
The same poll found that 72% supported women being conscripted as well as men.
It isn’t clear what would happen to those refusing to serve in WW3, but in WW2, British ‘conscientious objectors’ were put on trial, with some given mandatory jobs to contribute to the war effort in other ways instead.